Micro-managing

So I returned from the council retreat older, and visibly wiser. Possibly saddened. You know how Gwen has these paranoia bouts where she rants about the infidelity and maliciousness of the world? It used to make me uncomfortable, because in my little pig-tail Anne of Green Gables Methodist-raised girl world, everyone is inherently good somehow.

Turned out the Catholics were right after all.

People are uncaring,selfish, and ready to drag you down at any moment. The minute you let a crack show, the faintest show of humanity, they leap to the fore, pitchforks at the ready. You can never be pretend to be anything but perfect because they'll never respect you anyway.

What I'm trying in my own words to say is pretty much summed up in this blog. It's a bit more gentle at the University level but the general spirit is all there. I spent a weekend in the mountains with 22 power-hungry and scheming councillors from Nursing, Medicine, Law, Arts, Management, Science et. al and let me tell you I learnt. It was a microism of the working world and just as they say, you never let a crack show through the business facade. And you learn not to care about people because they'll stab you in the back for a cookie. Nothing happened to me specifically but watching the rest taught me all that and more. And of course, the final lesson, never speak 'till you have to. Power and influence baby, yeah, baby, yeah.

Is this the world I want to belong to? I was thinking about my friends and I don't ever want to see them turn to it except for Faliq because he enjoys it, but that just might be a boy thing. I feel visibly sadder, that I have to develop this cold, hard, thick exterior to get things done. I know, I know, it's real life, and my friend put it this way, "If you can make it at McGill you can make it anywhere. This is real life." Not being coddled by some Ivy-league as they transport you from the cold simpering nipple of the academic to the equally cold metallic gin bottle of the corporate world. Is this the job what I want? Maybe I should braid my hair and run off to join Nidhi at Oxfam.

Or maybe I'll just be like everyone else, working in some 17th floor office staring down at Manhatten dreamily wondering if this $300,000 starting investment banking career is "worth it". Because I was too scared and poor to try anything else. And too full of pride. It takes a strong woman to admit that money isn't everything. To REALLY say it instead of mouthing it? That's hard.